Tag: motherland

There are probably way better analogies for Tarik Skubal’s WBC participation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But the first one that comes to mind is when Amazon announced the first-ever Prime Day, they were boasting that it was going to basically be the Brack Friday of the summer, that there were going to be all sorts of incredible deals, massive savings, and that it was going to be the greatest shopping event of the year outside of the holidays.  But when Prime Day began, it became quickly apparent that it really was Amazon’s cleverly-named attempt to clean out their warehouses, because for every one marquee item they had that sold out in two seconds, there were at least a million listings for dumb bullshit like USB cables, electrical outlet covers, dish towels, and all sorts of small, inane crap that nobody really needed.

Anyway, that’s kind of what it feels like to find out that reigning AL Cy Young winner and vocal proponent of USA Baseball, Tarik Skubal revealed that he was only planning on making one start in the World Baseball Classic, and then returning to Spring Training.

Skubal was one of the first players announced for Team USA, and an easy guy to hitch the wagon to, as someone whose incredible arm could easily carry the squad deep into the tournament, and most importantly, potentially neutralize the potent lineups of Japan, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

Considering the United States has only won the tournament they basically invented in order to pad their global athletic standing once out of five times, it’s got to be like a sour grape for USA Baseball, and something they always want to wash the taste out of their mouths, by winning again, and closing that lead held by Japan, who has won 3 of 5, and a guy like Skubal committing is a giant boon, especially since he was shortly followed by NL Cy Young winner, Paul Skenes, creating an incredibly unfair-sounding 1-2 pitching duo in a short tournament format.

But now Skubal reveals that he’s only planning to make a single start, against Great Britain of all teams in the tournament; unsurprising, once such intel was absorbed by baseball fans, it quickly turned into snarky vitriol towards the talented lefty, with people accusing him of unpatriotically going into body protect mode, since it’s clear that he’s going to be seeking out a gabillion dollar contract after the 2026 season, as he’s set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time.

Like, in one hand, I get the importance of protecting one’s self, especially considering the last WBC saw closer Edwin Diaz blow out his knee in 2022 and miss an entire season, and injury is always on the backs of the minds of nearly every participating major leaguer.

But in the other hand, if Skubal knew that he wasn’t going to commit more than a single fucking start for Team USA, I feel like it probably would’ve been best had he just not committed to the team in the first place.  Free up the spot to someone who really wanted to put their balls on the line for the country, and is willing to make three starts if needed, which should encapsulate a group, knockout and potential final in a best-case scenario.

In a way, joining the squad but then only committing to a single appearance, against possibly the worst team in the entire tournament is tantamount to being a part of a group project in school, doing the very first assignment, but then not doing anything at all for the remainder of the project.

Look, I know my analogy game is terribly off right now, but the point is, Skubal’s shenanigans is like a shitty rug pull that gave US baseball hope, but then took it all back.  If anything, if Skubal was only going to commit to a single game, it would be best served if it were saved to be against Japan or any of the other expected powerhouses of the tournament, and save appearances against scrubs like Great Britain, Brazil or Italy for guys like the retired Clayton Kershaw or Logan Webb.

Obviously, I’d love to see Team USA win another WBC, because I don’t think Korea is going to make the runs they did like they did in 2006 and 2009 ever again, but it’s times like this where the greed and body-protect logic of professional athletes gets really fucking old.  There’s a reason why Japan has won three of the five WBCs, and there’s very little reason to believe that they’re not going to be knocking on the door of a fourth one in coming weeks.

Dad Brog (#162): Three over three

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m halfway tempted to change the title of my dad brogs to the above, but really the hope is that this is a one-time blow-off kind of rant, and that when the smoke clears dad brogs remain being about my kids and my journey through fatherhood, and not really any further about being a parent to an elderly Korean parent on top of it.

Regardless, three over three is pretty succinct in how I’m feeling these days, because I have three human beings in my care that over the age of three years old, and they’re basically all fucking kids.  Two of them being my actual kids, but the third being my dad, whom, like many Korean parents throughout history, has chosen to go down the path of being as inept as possible, as needlessly dependent as possible, and to require as much care and patience as an actual child needs.

I thought I was right on the money when I came up with the general basis of The Korean Story™ but one thing I was completely blind to was what life was going to be like when the parents actually do hit that feeble senior life, and it’s the responsibility of the children (me) to basically become the parent, all while trying to not inhibit progress when they (in)conveniently want to remain the parent and demand respect and authority without any warning, spontaneously.

But basically my dad has become my third child, much to my dismay, and over the span of the last 12+ months, it’s been my biggest challenge trying to be the adult in the room, and steer him into decisions that are my best attempt to be for his benefit; just like my actual children.

It also doesn’t help that conversing with him, I can understand about as much as I can my actual kids’ excited ramblings about Pokémon or whatever fandoms they fancy at the time, primarily on account of the worsening language barrier, and the rate in which he listens to me when I’m trying to tell him do so something is about as successful as with my kids, that’s leading me to feel this way.

But it’s at its worst when I’m with all three of them at the same time, and my kids want attention, and my dad wants to ramble on about something that’s not important but he’s pretending like the fate of the world rests on it, that I’m asking myself what my life really is right now, and I’m pondering just how bad my blood pressure must look at these specific junctures in time.

However, the difference between my kids and my dad is that they’re heading in opposite directions as far as their attitudes towards independence.  Whereas it’s a routine struggle to negotiate with my kids on what they think they can do versus what I know they’re not capable of, it’s a constant struggle with my dad to try and get him to do things that I know he can do once he learns how to, but he refuses to even fucking try because he’s assuming everything has passed him by and that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.

I got him a television, a smart one, so that he could avoid having more than one remote control, because the presence of anything higher than one results in a system failure, and the television would collect dust, unused.  I set up the wifi, Netflix, and an app specific to Korean television, but trying to explain the concept of apps is like trying to explain quantum physics to an inanimate onion.  I’ve set things up so that turning on the television and going into the Korean television app would require three total key presses, had him write it down with drawings of the buttons, but after two days, I’ve learned that he’s hit system failure and hasn’t turned it on since the one time he tried and failed to get into the app.

I wouldn’t dare say that my dad is lacking in intelligence, but what he really is, has become fucking lazy and defeatist, and is making his unwillingness to learn my problem, and the problem of the scant everyone else in his life who has tried to help.

And let’s not get started with his iPhone, and it just makes me mad at the world for advancing into gradually worsening ageist times that completely ignore the existence of the elderly, who almost have no options other than smart phones, full of all sorts of features and functions that they not only need, but their presence makes the elderly go into system failure, and just give the fuck up on them, which doesn’t help that we’re in a modern age where not having a phone is tantamount to not having lungs.

Today, I went to visit my dad, and brought the girls with me, so we could do an activity that I intend on making a permanent standing monthly event, on top of any other visits that could happen throughout.  And as much as I love knowing that my kids can actually spend some time with their grandfather, and that my dad can actually spend some time with his grandchildren and actual blood relatives, much less human interaction, it was pretty high-stress.

Being the only adult in the room for hours on end gets tiring, and have my kids wanting to run around and touch and climb everything in sight, and then there’s my dad with shit for legs, needing a walker, always a fall risk, and there’s always a deficiency in coverage somewhere when trying to do the even most mundane things like get in the car, go into a restaurant, or any small task.

My dad hardly understands the girls’ speak, the girls don’t understand anything my dad says, we all love each other, but like so many cases in my life these days, I’m smack dab in the middle of being pulled in numerous directions, and I’m fried by the end of the visit.

Naturally, coming home, I get obliterated by two massive highway issues because Georgia is smart and loves to do all their road construction right in the heart of the weekend, and then I come home and my wife is pissed because I’ve been gone too long and even if she understands the circumstances, it’s me that the anger is taken out on, and I’m just like what the fuck, might as well blow my fucking brains out.

Shit like this is why I haven’t been so apt to buy into the concept of thinking or hoping that with a new year comes a fresh start, because I know all the shit going on in my life; it doesn’t matter what number is at the end of the year, because a lot of the things I’m going through are some long fucking games, and ain’t no resolutions or hustles going to change anything quickly short of winning the lottery and just buying off a whole shit load of the problems away.

It’s almost funny how it wasn’t long after getting my vasectomy that my dad decided to transform into the third child I wanted to avoid having by having a surgical procedure, but considering the angst and darkness that swirls through my mind when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and overstimulated, it most certainly is fucking not.

Suck it, Frogs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pasticceria Internazionale: Korea wins the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, defeating France

A long time ago, my dad told me that if you train a Korean in something, they are more than capable of becoming the best in the world at it.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t in such phrasing, but he basically did tell me that Koreans are basically good at everything they put their minds and hearts into, and such a notion was proven correct as Koreans won the Baking World Cup in France, defeating not just the French, but also Taiwan, whom placed third and second behind them.

Honestly, it really isn’t that much of a surprise, considering the general nature of Koreans is that they’re very detail oriented and more than competent when it comes to intricate processes like machinery, or baking.  And as far as my experiences in America as well as Korea are concerned, if you see a bakery with a name that’s remotely French, there’s a very high chance that it’s being operated by Koreans.  They’ve taken to French Baking like a fish to water, and all you have to do is watch any episode of Culinary Class Wars to see just how many Koreans are adept at French cuisine in general.

With the win, Korea joins the United States and Japan as the only countries to now have multiple Baking World Cup wins, since the whole competition was started 24 years ago.  It’s funny how it was started obviously by the French, and they’ve basically already been outclassed by everyone else in an arena that they basically invented.  Then again, the United States has only won one World Baseball Classic, and Team USA basketball now requires Herculean performances in order to stop getting pwned by the rest of the world in hoops.

Koreans can’t seem to win at anything on their home soil, except for the occasional League of Legends Worlds, and if the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie were to be held in Seoul, they would undoubtedly not place.  But I can kind of get it, as far as competition goes, I’ve personally always felt more at ease when I’m the one on the road, and not feeling any sort of hometown pressure.

Regardless, I’m tickled to even learn that something like the Baking World Cup was even a thing, but I never want to any time Koreans flex their dominance against the rest of the world in any way, shape or form.  Of course Korea are the best bakers in the world, even better than the Frogs that invented the arena.  It’s like that SNL skit where fake Celine Dion keeps hijacking other singers’ songs and proclaiming to be better than them at their own songs, except Korea dominating France very much happened.

White people can’t admit that kimchi is just good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Inquirer: US government includes kimchi to America’s list of gut health-friendly foods

Seeing as how I’m the only person in my household that actually likes and eats kimchi, sometimes it’s a struggle to eat all the kimchi in the amounts that they’re sold in.  For most of my life, kimchi was a dish served solely with Korean foods, rices, stews, bbq or anything that would constitute as a ‘Korean meal.’

But one day, I had this idea of just adding some of this aging kimchi to a sandwich.  I didn’t have any mustard, I was out of pepperjack cheese, and my house is generally pretty sparse when it comes to condiments, and turkey, I saw this great meme about how it’s the meat that is the equivalent of a human being who doesn’t drink enough water even though they know they should, and I had this idea of adding kimchi to my sandwich to help elevate a mundane turkey sandwich.

I felt like I had just invented fire, based on the sheer life that it had injected into my entrée.  And then I had one of those moments where I had to stop what I was doing and process the door I had just unlocked and opened up, realizing that I could add kimchi to a whole new world of foods out there to try and enhance them.

Kimchi in sandwiches.  Kimchi in curries.  Kimchi in very specific tacos.  Kimchi on burgers, hot dogs.  Kimchi as a side to steak or chops or fried chicken.  Kimchi no longer needed to be restricted to accompanying solely Korean food, it was a revelation that I had way too late in my life.

The point is, kimchi is a wonderful food, and it’s cringeworthingly bittersweet that the United States government is recognizing it on a federal level.  And it’s clear that it’s a very white people tactic of trying to push kimchi to the American people, by instead of just letting people come to their own conclusions about the food, they wrap it in a cornucopia of science in declaring it a gut health food, so that people might eat it out of health conscientious instead of branching out their tastebuds into food other than chicken tenders or bougie doughnuts.

All the scientific jargon seems legit to me, but aside from it all, kimchi is just a food that tastes great.  And the thing is, like most of the Korean language, the term kimchi is so broad and subjective, and encapsulates a lot varieties other than the napa cabbage version that whitey is probably thinking is the only form of kimchi that exists.

Whatever though, as critical as I may be by the tactic, I always do like when Korean things get recognized on a more global scale.  Except if through its exposure, it causes all of the greedy merchants of the world to see justification to raise their prices and make it less economical for me to get my motherland’s staple.

Xaivian Lee’s parents must be so disappointed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: Xaivian Lee’s late three-pointer secure’s Florida’s upset against #10 Vanderbilt

In other news, I learned of Xaivian Lee’s existence and upon a cursory fact check, yes he is Korean.  Which means that there is a Korean hooper out there outside of Korea, that is actively playing for a North American D-I program.

Color me surprised and fascinated.

Granted, according to his wiki, boy is from Toronto, and is about as white-washed as I am, especially based on the fact that his name is “Xaivian,” and based on his general physical appearance and the fact that he cleared 6’0, I’d really be curious to what his 23 and Me looks like, but for all intents and purposes, he’s of enough Korean descent for this post to manifest.

My knee-jerk reaction to seeing that he had transferred out of Princeton to go to UF was that his parents must have been apoplectic at the notion of him leaving an Ivy to go to an SEC school, but I saw that he was at Princeton for four years, which leads to the assumption that he had to have graduated, which is the absolute bare minimum of acceptance for Korean parents.  I’d guess that they let him chase his dream of moar hooping contingent of graduation from an Ivy League school although they probably would have preferred if he went to Harvard or Yale instead of Princeton.

Initially, I was ready to make all the bad jokes in the world about own disappointed his parents must’ve been that he went from Princeton to Florida.  But the more I read and learn about his general bio, the more my thoughts and opinions alter, since I’m kind of writing this off the cuff and learning while I write as opposed to doing my research in advance and coming up with a general basis before writing out.

Seeing as how ol’ Xaivian finished his time at Princeton, and his numbers scream out, nowhere close to good enough for the NBA much less should he even want to go considering the absolute racist gate he would be inevitable to slam into, he’s a perfect case for the college player to bilk as much eligibility and NIL money as humanly possible, and a move to UF was probably a great idea. 

And therein lies some of the effects of the NIL pendulum swung so hard to the opposite end of the spectrum, where fringe and no-chance-at-pro caliber players are clinging to dear life at college eligibility and are looking like a bunch of Van Wilders staying at school at 24+ years of age.  But for every Asian athlete that literally has no shot at North American pros, there are probably like 3-4 non-Asians who might be, but know they can still bilk more from NIL versus being a practice squad or development prospect at the pro level, and these guys can eat dicks and gtfo out of the NCAA.

I saw some shit recently about how there were like over 3,000 players currently in the transfer portal currently; that’s almost like 60-70 entire teams’ worth of players.  This is what’s making college sports so crazy right now, is that the entire collegiate level is jam packed full of all these kids bouncing around all over the place trying to sniff out as much NIL money as they can.  And among them are all these 23+ year old graduates enrolling in patsy graduate programs in order to keep playing college sports against other Van Wilders or literal teenagers.

But I’m straying off topic here, the point of this post was to acknowledge the existence of Xaivian Lee, an actual Korean hooper playing for a noteworthy NCAA program, and being good enough to be hitting game winning threes and getting a little bit of spotlight from North American sport media.  He may have already graduated from Princeton and is doing a little bit of Van Wilder-ing because he knows he has no shot at the NBA, but there’s no doubt in my mind that his parents are probably still disappointed in him, even if he is pulling in a million bucks in NIL.  They probably think he could’ve already been making four times that had he traded up to Harvard or Yale and become a doctor or lawyer instead.

Thoughts on Netflix’s Physical: Asia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Spoilers inevitable]

When I saw that Netflix’s Physical: 100 franchise has branched off into Physical: Asia, I thought that this was an interesting twist on the series, especially if it were going to be solely team-based and never branched off into individual competition.  The nationalistic lean of categorizing competitors based on country seemed like a real intriguing way to be more than just a bunch of individuals trying to outdo one another, for the goal of being the Top-1 of Physical.

After watching Physical: Asia, I have to say that I found it to be completely enjoyable, and I tip my cap to the show for creating a series and format that I found to be captivating and often eliciting tension and excitement for me as a viewer, while also being wholesome and applause-worthy in a manner that’s really basically only possible in shows produced outside of America.

It’s not because Korea won the whole thing, although that does please me, in spite of the obvious bias accusations that I’m sure I’ll touch on later, but as a whole, the show was exciting, compelling, seldom dull, and kept me on the edge of my seat more often than being able to sit there and simply relax while watching.

Frankly, I thought Korea had no chance of winning, solely based on the hypothesis that the showrunners wouldn’t want to be accused of favoritism, and find some convoluted manner to eliminate them while not making them appear weak.  But at the same time, seeing as how Japan was also a contending nation, I figured they had no shot at winning either, because fuck if a Korean-produced competitive television show would allow Japan to walk away victorious, but more on Japan a little later.

What was the most refreshing part about the show, to me, is basically the same reason why my wife enjoys The Great British Baking Show – in spite of the competition, everyone is still cool to each other, and there’s a lot of sportsmanship and general respect for one another.  Even between the Koreans and Japanese athletes, there’s not any genuine hostility beyond the obvious notion that when it comes down to it, neither of them wants to yield to the other.  But otherwise, everyone is all about high-fives, hugs and fist-bumps when they’re not actively trying to eliminate others, and the respect and sportsmanship among all competitors is refreshing to watch, especially as Americans who are so engrained in seeing absolute shitheads and the filth of the earth competing in reality television because controversy creates cash.

However, in spite of the praise I have for the show overall, I did think that there was some fishiness to the format, that I’m sure people on reddit and other fan discussion forums have probably pointed out:

Continue reading “Thoughts on Netflix’s Physical: Asia” →

Dad Brog (#158): I’m not ready for anything prefaced by “adult”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m in the middle of one of those weekends where I’ve sparsely had any time for myself; even more so than usual.  The kids are still in this weird adjustment period of daylight savings as well as simply adapting to their general schedules, and this particular morning, they were up at 7 am, not long after I had gotten up to begin my day, and I was completely unprepared as far as having breakfast ready, but it didn’t matter that my kids were ready to begin their day.

Instead of a 60-90 minute quiet time reprieve in the middle of the day, this was a day in which there were two concurrent birthday parties happening at the same time, so mythical wife and I decided to divide and conquer and take each kid to a different party, in different parts of town.  I watched #2 plow through three slices of pizza, a ridiculously gargantuan slice of cake, and a bowl of dipping dots, all while playing a bunch of really shitty games at Chuck-E-Cheese where kids are lucky to get maybe 15 seconds of game time before the credits expire and I can’t imagine paying actual money for gaming time with such absurdly unfavorable math, and I felt fortunate to be on a timed party free-play.

Needless to say, with the kids down, instead of relaxing, I found myself playing catch-up on things that I didn’t get to do on a typical Saturday, which meant hopping on the treadmill to get some exercise, while simultaneously doing my daily Duolingo that I typically prefer to do early in the morning before everyone else is really up.  And then I decided to go run some errands while some stores were still open, all for the sake of not having to them during Sunday, when I would inevitably have to have a kid in tow while trying to do them, and by the time I’m sitting here it’s past ten, and I don’t feel like I have adequate time to really watch something from my endless list of crap that I want to watch, so I bring myself to sit here to write in my brog that nobody knows exists.

But hey, at least I got to go be on top of the drop of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, and watched the first two episodes on Friday night, and the show was as good as I would have hoped it would be, so that’s something remotely positive amidst feeling buried by life and looking out the metaphorical window of the world to see the United States completely at peace with itself forcibly starving its own citizens but this post wasn’t meant to be political as much as I just wanted to take that dig in lieu of making a dedicated post about how fucked America is.

However, getting to the point of this post, the biggest occurrence to happen over this weekend was undoubtedly the fact that #1 lost her first tooth, and I’m just not ready for this at all.  Because when it comes to teeth, most everyone knows that the vernacular for them are baby teeth, and when they fall out, they’re supplanted by your adult teeth, and I am so not fucking ready to hear the word “adult” at all, associated with my five-year old child.

It’s crazy, it was just like a few weeks ago in which #1 pointed out to mythical wife and I that she had a wiggly tooth, and we were both having the same reaction about how, wtf has all this time flown by to where our kid is now having her baby teeth starting to fall out.  A cursory internet search confirms that five is a fairly common age for the first teeth to begin falling out, and I have memories of my own childhood of when I had my first loose tooth, where my dad tied a piece of floss around it before yanking it out, and the vague memory of feeling like I’d been punched in the mouth, with a similar result of there being a lot of blood.

But as unfortunate as it was that I couldn’t be there when it happened, there wasn’t really much blood when #1’s first tooth came out.  I had literally just taken her to the dentist just says prior, and I saw the X-rays showing the adult teeth rapidly growing underneath and how to anticipate the first tooth to come out soon, and it was still a harrowing moment seeing those photographs of all these adult teeth starting to grow beneath the baby ones, and again I’m struggling to hear the word adult at all when it comes to my kid, because she’s still just five freaking years old.

Inevitably, like the Korean blood in her body demands, questions about the Tooth Fairy and the whole concept of getting money for teeth came up pretty immediately, and now I’ve got to start ponying up cash to put under her pillow and hope to not wake her along the way.  Plus there’s the whole question of just how much money to give for a tooth; when I was a kid, it was $2 a tooth, but my parents quashed the whole mythos of the Tooth Fairy real quick and just gave me cashmoney on the spot after an extraction.

It’s going to be a tricky next few years, given the fact that I have two kids of close age who will be inevitably be periodically dropping teef throughout the next 8-9 years, and me having to keep up with needing adequate cash to fund all these damn teef and keep up with inflation.

But heaven help me that there are anything at all in my little girls’ bodies that are considered adult, even if they’re pretty much right on schedule when it comes to the first teeth falling out.  They’re always going to be babies to me.